PARLIAMENTARY NEWS.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1958, 3 June 1880, Page 3

PARLIAMENTARY NEWS.

[By Telegraph.)

[FROM OHR OWN CORRESPONDENT.^ WELLINGTON, June 2

There is hardly any political gossip stirring to-day. The Government carried all the sessional committees without the slightestjdifficulty, thus securing an advantage at starting. The Regulation of Elections Bill, which as I have previously telegraphed, is the same as that of last session, passed the second reading without a debate or even a breath of opposition, the result being that the Order Paper was exhausted, and the House will not meet to-night. The only special feature to-day was Sir G. Grey’s notice of motion to reduce the salaries of Ministers. Dr. Wallis gave notice that ho would move the second reading of the Corrupt Practices Prevention Bill, prefaced by the following amendment—“Thatno Corrupt Practices Prevention Bill will be satisfactory to this House which gives no definition of the words agent or agency in connection with elections, and which sanctions payment for the conveyance of voters to the poll, and which docs not recognise the distinction between the necessary expenses of elections, and those other expenses which though not necessary arc not at present legal, and which does not propose to enact that all the aforesaid necessary expenses must bo paid through the returning officer.”

[from an occasional correspondent. 3 A sham fight came off on the reply to the address yesterday, which Colonel Trimble proposed in an orderly and expressive speech, which will road better than it sounded, and Captain Russell seconded in a more conciliatory tone. Mr Maoandrew’s speech was a declaration of surrender on the reply, with an evident token that the real fight was to be taken on the property tax, on which he knows it will be mure easy to raise a storm. His speech was not a vicious one by any means. Dr. Wallis delivered a long sermon with five heads and a batch of sub-divisions. He was very impartial in selecting his objects of ridicule, and was even more rough on Messrs Pyke and Stewart than on the Auckland four, hut otherwise he proclaimed Sir G. Grey all perfection, and the present Ministry the origin and incarnation of all sin. The Commissions came in for a share of censure, but as he was only just off of a Commission himself, he had to talk mildly, though ho had evidently forgotten that at least one of the Commissions he now condemned was recommended in what ho calls the perfect speech of the Grey Government, Sir George came on with his usual baseless assertions, which wore sent to the winds by a few vigorous sentences of facts and figures by the Premier. Worn as he is with overwork, the Hon. J. Hall spoke with great energy, and I never heard him speak more effectively. He was particularly happy in the way in which he turned round to his colleagues, and in a halfsuppressed voice asked if he should seriously answer Dr. Wallis’s ridiculous charges, which was answered by a shout of “No ” from all aides of the House. Mr Pyke followed with a capital speech of its kind. His fine voice was clearer than it will be after ho has been a week at the House, and although he was as egotistical and inaccurate as usual, the speech was full of genuine humor and real wit. His chief, but was the Railway Commission, which he handled very cleverly, but he ended with a coarse bad joke against the Auckland four, which pleased himself so immensely that he had to sit down and laugh at it. The important work of to-day has been the appointment of all the sessional committees, at which the Opposition showed their teeth in the debate, but dared not divide. The Hon. John Hall’s methodical hand is well shown in the selection of these committees. Every member of the House will find that he has been allotted something to do, and no one will find that his name has been paraded on all the committees for the purpose of catching his vote or gratifying an excessive vanity.